Manual/Weapons
Weapon design is changed from Quake III Arena, but they work the same way. Each weapon has got an unique fire type. There is a mod for Quake 3 that works also with OpenArena and adds a secondary fuction to each weapon: Alternate Fire. Another mod that adds additional fire modes is Rune Quake 3. You can find weapons and their related ammo boxes around the arena: getting an ammo box before you get its weapon is useless (except for the fact that your enemies will not be able to grab them before they re-spawn again). Killed players may drop their weapon, allowing other players to pick it up. Important: the autoswitch weapons feature makes your character automatically choose the weapon you just picked up, and you may wish to select the autoswitch mode you prefer or to completely disable it, according to your taste. OpenArena 0.8.8 added some new autoswitch modes that are not supported while playing with old mods. Usually you enter the game with the gauntlet and the machine gun only, but the map creator may allow to spawn with more weapons. In Elimination, CTF Elimination and Last Man Standing modes (plus pontentially every other gamemode, if g_elimination special game option is active), instead, all items are removed from the map and the starting weapons and ammo are set by the server admin. You can choose a weapon by scrolling your weapon inventory (usually using your mouse wheel), or by pressing the corresponding key (that may provide a faster switch, if you are quick at pressing the right key). Each weapon is identified by a number: the command /weapon directly selects the corresponding weapon, and you can bind such command to a key by using the command console or from the SETUP -> CONTROLS -> SHOOT menu. See Manual/Controls for more info. Most weapons are divided into "hitscan" and "projectile" categories. "Hitscan" are "instant-hit" weapons: targets on their trajectory are immediately reached (the actual moment that "counts" for determining a successful hit or not may depend from the Point of View of the server -if lag compenation feature is turned OFF- or from the Point of View of the client that shoots -if lag compensation feature is turned ON-): the only defense against them is to move quickly or impredictably to make it difficult for the shooter to correctly aim (of course, attacking him first is another option). "Projectile" weapons actually shoot bullets that fly in the air at visible speeds: these can actually be dodged by the attacked player after they have been fired. Various weapons are capable of damaging more players with a single shot, due to firing more "pellets" in a single shot, or due to exploding pojectiles. Weapons can cause either "direct" or "splash" damage to each opponent. "Direct" damage is the normal damage caused by a direct hit; "splash" damage is the damage usually caused by an explosion, whithin a certain radius around the point of the detonation (damage is less as the character is more far from the center of the explosion). Note: battle suit powerup gives total protection against splash damage, and also cuts normal damage in half. Note: for info about other items you can pick-up, please read Manual/Items. For other things in the maps that you can interact with, please read Manual/Map elements. Tip: OpenArena introduced some options to customize your weapon bar (weapon inventory) look: take a look to Manual/Graphic options#Weapon bar. Hint: switching from a weapon to another one requires a little time (and if you just fired, the change will be done only after the current weapon reload time). It is a quick operation... however, there are a few mods that allow to customize weapon switch speed, and OpenArena itself (baseoa) added a "dmflags" value to allow instant weapon switch (still after weapon reload time!) with OpenArena 0.8.8. Vanilla OpenArena weapons These are the weapons from the original Quake III Arena. In OpenArena, their look is different than in Q3A, but they work the same way. "Vanilla" is intended to mean the "base" game. Gauntlet *The gauntlet is a mêlée weapon which combines a whirling saw blade with an electrical charge. *It is used for close combat only, and one hit inflicts 50 damage. *When a gauntlet kill is achieved, the killer earns a gauntlet medal and both the killer and the victim receive a "humiliation" message. *It is normally a last-resort weapon, but is also useful in narrow corridors and doorways. *It does not need ammo. *Important: unlike other weapons, gauntlet is not selectable by scrolling your weapons inventory with the mouse (to avoid unintentinal selection), but you have to press the proper key ("1", by default) to select it instead. * Weapon number: 1 Machine Gun *The machine gun is the other weapon that the player starts out with (usually, all players start with 100 ammo for it, except Team Deathmatch mode where they start with 50 bullets. Usually you will not find the weapon itself spawning in the map, but just its ammo boxes. Map maker may however change this behavior, giving a different amount of ammo or removing the weapon from initial inventory). It is a hitscan weapon (instantaneous impact) that can rapidly inflict small amounts of damage (7 hp per bullet, 5 hp in TDM) and has a small degree of spread (approx. 2 degrees). *The machinegun has a rate of ten shots per second. * Weapon number: 2 Shotgun *The shotgun is primarily used for close range combat since its large spray diminishes with distance. *The shotgun shoots 11 pellets that deal 10 damage each, so a concentrated spread can kill an unarmoured player. *Like the machine gun, it is an instant impact weapon. *The shotgun is found on almost every stock map. *To mitigate its high damage it has a one second delay between shots. * Weapon number: 3 Grenade Launcher *This weapon fires grenades that detonate either on contact with another player or 2.5 seconds after being launched. *Grenades will not detonate as a result of contact by the one who launched it or be obstructed by him/her. *In comparison to the rocket launcher, it releases projectiles faster although more ordnance is required to inflict similar damage due to the grenade's inaccurate short-range arc and bounce unpredictability (making it hard to score a direct hit). *It fires at a rate of 0.8 seconds. * Weapon number: 4 Rocket Launcher *The rocket launcher can inflict a lot of damage with little aim as the rocket impacts cause a lot of splash damage. *Because of its wide blast radius, players are encouraged to shoot the ground, wall, or ceiling, rather than aim for the opponent directly. *This however becomes a double-edged sword at closer ranges; at point blank range the player could significantly harm or kill himself if he is careless (maximum possible damage it may cause to its own user is 50 HP). *A direct hit on an opponent deals 100 damage, but in that case splash damage cannot be added to the victim. *This weapon can also be used to rocketjump, taking advantage of the player's own blast to reach even higher heights than regular jumping. * Weapon number: 5 Lightning Gun *The lightning gun (also referred as the shaft) is much like the machine gun, it directly impacts a destination, but it fires a beam with limited range (768 units). *It can kill a healthy opponent in less than two seconds because it shoots at 0.05 seconds per pulse. *The lightning gun makes a unique noise when selected, even when not active. Opponents in close range might hear it, alerting them of your presence and of your selected weapon. *Cg_truelightning variable controls how you will see your LG beam on the screen, while playing without latency compensation (OpenArena supports Latency Compensation technology for instant-hit weapons -"Unlag Hitscan"-OpenArena hitscan latency compensation is enabled by g_delaghitscan <0 or 1> (server-side, default: 0) and cg_delag <0 or 1> (client-side, default: 1) variables: both should be set to 1 for Unlag Hitscan to work. Some old mods may not support latency compensation, or may include their own latency compensation technology (e.g. "Unlagged", "ZPM (Zero Ping Mode)" mods).). Default value is 0.0. With 0, it is drawn following the responses from the server (the actual machine that "counts" for determining the hit, without latency compensation), but due to the latency, this causes the ray to follow your view "slowly"; with 1, it is drawn directly in front of your crosshair as a straight beam. Fractional values between 0.0 and 1.0 are allowed (client anticipates server responses more or less). You may want to do some tests to find the mid-way values (e.g. 0.9, 0.75, 0.5, 0.01, etc) that you feel better with. However, while playing with latency compensation active instead, you have to do not worry of this LG tuning: beam will always be shown straight and you will hit your opponent if he's in your crosshair. *Weapon number: 6 Rail Gun *The railgun is primarily used for long range combat or sniping (although its range is not infinite: there does exist a distance limitation, although it's only relevant in really large maps). *It is 100% accurate, inflicts 100 damage but has a low fire rate (default 1.5 seconds). *The rail gun makes a unique noise when selected, even when not active. Opponents in close range might hear it, alerting them of your presence and of your selected weapon. * Although firing only a single pellet and not having splash damage, you may sometimes hit more characters with a single shot due to RG slugs going through bodies! * You can customize the color of your own RG beam from Player settings menu. You can show or hide the outer "spiral" of all RG beams with cg_oldrail <0 or 1> variable: with 1, external "spiral" trace is omitted from railgun beam (default value is 0). * For Railgun lovers, OpenArena includes instantgib option (railgun only, one hit: one kill) without the need of using a third-party mod. However, some insta-gib mods, like CorkScrew, are very good. * Trivia: in first Q3A versions, Railgun maximum range was much longer. It has been lowered by iD Software for their Team Arena mod (with its great power and precision, RG was too powerful in very large maps), and they later ported this change also to the main game, with some PointRelease patch. OpenArena, created starting from GPLv2 Q3A 1.32b source code, hence inherited the "updated" (shorter range) version of the Railgun (don't worry: it's always a temible weapon, very good for long range combat). To further balance railgun against other weapons, a few mods even tweaked it to make it cause less damage. * Weapon number: 7 Plasma Gun *The plasma gun is an effective weapon for close to medium range combat. *It rapidly fires a stream of deadly pulses (10 per second) which inflict a significant amount of damage (20 hp per orb). *The fast-traveling bursts however are not instant impact like the machine gun. *The plasma also inflicts minor splash damage, which can actually be used to "plasma climb". **But, because the power of the splash damage is small, plasma climbing is slower than rocket jumping, cannot gain as much height, and requires more skill. More details about plasma climbing are under the Techniques page. * Cg_oldplasma <0 or 1> affect how plasma shots are drawn: with 0, plasma balls leave additional particle effects behind them (nice at view, but nothing impressive and they could distract from gameplay). Default value is 1. * Weapon number: 8 BFG10K *BFG10K is considered the ultimate weapon. *A rapid-fire weapon, firing out bursts of fast-moving plasma at a rate of about 5 shots per second, which inflict damage and splash damage 100 hp per cell. *In effect, BFG10k is a rapid-fire Rocket Launcher with faster projectiles and other than the name it shares little in common with the first famous BFG weapon. *It exists a Mod for Quake III Arena that works also with OpenArena and features the BFG from Quake II instead of the one from Quake 3: BFG10K Arena. *The BFG10K makes a unique noise when selected, even when not active. Opponents in close range might hear it, alerting them of your presence and of your selected weapon. * Weapon number: 9 Missionpack additional weapons These weapons are originally from Quake III: Team Arena. They can be found in standard OA too, so learn to use them. Note: when playing mods designed for Q3 (except Team Arena itself), you will probably not find anything in the place where these weapons would spawn in baseoa, because standard Q3A gamecode (the base for Q3 mods) did not contain them.Hint for map creators: you should place enough "standard" weapons to allow the map to be playable also in old mods that do not support Missionpack weapons. A smart solution could be to use the "team" key to make a missionpack weapon spawn alternately to a standard weapon: in that case, while using old mods, players will be able to pickup the standard weapon each time. At the time of this writing, they have no specific keys binded by default (you can associate keys of your choice to them from the SETUP -> CONTROLS -> SHOOT menu). Prox mine launcher *Launches prox mines that stick to the ground, wall, ceiling or even to other players. *They will explode if enemy is close, are hit by splash damage or after 20 seconds. *They deal up to 100 damage each (that's the damage you get also if "you have been mined"). Placing more of them near each other can cause deadly contemporary detonations. *They cause "splash" damage, but no "direct" damage (if you step near enemy mines, run away as fast as you can before they detonate, to escape blast radius; battle suit gives total protection against splash damage, even if "you have been mined"), with the only exception of "the juiced effect". *The prox mines are color coded and they will not cause any harm to you although they can push you back. You and your teammates will not trigger the explosions of your mines, but you may risk to kill your teammates by attaching the mines to them! *Mines are normally only found in team games but should you get a mine launcher in a non-team based gametype (as Free For All) then the mines will not be color coded and you will trigger your own ones, although they will still not deal any damage to you. * In addition to the above, you can combine a Quad Damage with a well-timed mine on the ground to attempt a'' very high ''mine jump. *Mines on players are hidden, and remain active on the corpse until the body disappears. *Mines on players explode after about 10 seconds. After the initial "you have been mined" message, you can see the "internal combustion" countdown: you can try to get enough health and armor bonuses to survive before time runs out, and/or to stay near opponents when exploding, hoping to bring them in hell together with you. *Proximity mines are the only weapons that can penetrate the force field of Invulnerability powerup. Just a single proximity mine can kill the Invulnerability user in a bubble of blood (a.k.a. the "juiced effect"), after just a few seconds.This delivers 1000 HP direct damage: even with Battle suit, you would die due to suffering 500 damage (battle suit cuts normal damage in half). * Weapon number: 12 ChainGun *A powerful Gatling gun. Similar to the Machine gun, but fires ammo at a much faster rate. It can be very deadly but its ammo will not last long. *Damage per shot is identical to the machine gun: 7 (but it is still 7 also in TDM mode). The spread is about 3 times larger than the machinegun. * Weapon number: 13 Nail gun *Fires a wave of 20 nails that fly in the air and hurt 20 HP each, potentially an enormous amount of damage. *However, it is a bit slow. * Weapon number: 11 Offhand grapple Offhand grapple, also known as grappling hook ("grapple" or "hook" for short), is not a normal weapon (it is not desiged to hurt people). You can use it only if it is included in the map (in OA 0.8.5, no "stock" map has it) or if you are playing Elimination, CTF Elimination or Last Man Standing game modes (or in any other mode when using g_elimination) with \elimination_grapple 1 (enabled: in that case, all players spawn having it). Offhand grapple is selected like a weapon in your inventory. Select it, then shoot to a wall and hold the button: you will be dragged there and you will remain there until you release the button. While you are hanging, you can switch to a "real" weapon, and shoot your enemies: in this case, you will detach only when you select the hook again, without pressing fire button. * Weapon number: 10 Notes: * Do not try to stay attached to a jump-pad: you would die in a very short time. * It does not need ammo. * In the original Q3 game, the grapple was not placed in any "stock" map, and its model, although working (map creators may place it anyway), was not properly skinned (appears grey). So the hook may be considered an unfinished or cut off feature, and id Software didn't fix the bugs in bots A.I. with it. OpenArena has got a skinned grapple model, but has not completed bot support that id Software left unfinised, at least for the moment: by default, bots simply not use it (grapple itself can be considered an official OA feature, but bots using grapple not). * Bots would use it ONLY IF the map .aas (bot navigation file, created with BSPC program, usually executed by map author) has been previously compiled with "-grapplereach" optionExample: bspc -grapplereach -optimize -bsp2aas mymap.bsp ("-grapplereach" option causes "calculating reachability" phase take a little more time during aas compiling) AND the server (the player, if playing locally) has got "bot_grapple" variable set to 1.Bot_grapple variable is set to 0 by default and returns to 0 each time you close the game and start it again (works this way since Q3A). However, at the moment enabling bot_grapple variable is advisable for testing purposes only. ** Bots would probably not use it to stay attached (camp) to high walls/ceiling like humans may do, but they may use it as shortcut to reach some higher floors. BOTS Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) with the grapple is limited and '''BUGGY: it is unclear whether they try to get it; they may miss the edge they are aiming at and continuing firing the grapple some more times without correcting its trajectory; more importantly, if bot grapple support is enabled but the bot character has not collected the grapple, he would get stuck, standing still and pointlessly firing with normal weapons aiming the wall where he would have fired the grapple if he had itTo workaround this last problem, one may create a map where all players spawn with the grapple, or play in Elimination or similar modes (or with g_elimination enabled) with /elimination_grapple 1: that way all players would always have the grapple.. In other words: currently, bots do not properly support the grapple. Maybe in the future someone may fix those bugs in BOTS behaviorIf you think you may be capable of doing that, feel free to use the forum to contact OA developers., but for the moment, enabling bot_grapple variable is advisable for testing purposes only. * Some mods (like CorkScrew or Alternate Fire) may include a different kind of offhand grapple, which does not appear in the weapon bar. This kind of mod-specific hook must be "binded" to a particular key, and you do not need to select grapple before using it. These mods allow faster hook use than OA standard grapple, but they require you to use an extra button. Related CVARS: * elimination_grapple: 1 enables and 0 disables grapple in Elimination, CTF Elimination and Last Man Standing modes. Default value is 0. * bot_grapple: if set to 1, it allows bots to use grapple (if the .aas file has been previously compiled with "-grapplereach" option). Default value is 0. * g_offhand_grapple: not part of the base OpenArena game, but a few mods -like Alternate Fire- enable or disable an always-equipped hook through this or similar variables. Pickup rules *You can collect up to 200 shots per weapon. Having 200 shots blocks ammo pickups for that weapons, but not the weapon pickups. *'''Taking a weapon pickup fills up to a basic ammount of ammo. If you already have more ammo than that, it only adds 1 shot. Exception is Team Deathmatch where you always get the basic amount added. *The mapper can change the numbers for weapons and ammo with the count-property. *Altough picking up a machine gun theoretically gives a basic amount of 40, this is quite unlikely to happen. Unless map maker appositely tweaked the map to alter the default behavior, usually all players spawn already owning the machinegun, with 100 ammo for it (50 in Team Deathmatch mode): usually you do not find machinegun weapon pickups in maps, but machinegun ammo boxes (bullets) only. * Sources for some infos in this section: http://openarena.ws/svn/source/code/game/g_items.c and http://openarena.ws/svn/source/code/game/bg_misc.c Normal values are: Respawn time Ammo and Weapons Ammo pickups (ammo boxes) respawn after 40 seconds. The time for the reoccuring of weapon pickups depends on g_weaponRespawn (default is 5 seconds) except for Team Deathmatch where g_weaponTeamRespawn (default is 30 seconds) is used. Modifying respawn times Superior to admin setup or game defaults, the mapper can change respawn timing: *The random-property adds randomness by adding/subtracting up to random seconds to the respawn time with a bottom line of 1 second in result. *The wait-property set to something other than zero replaces the respawn time (negative values mean: no respawning of this item). Weapons comparison table This table reassumes weapons properties. These values refer to the main game (baseoa): some mods may alter their behavior in various ways. Values have been checked from OpenArena 0.8.8 source codehttp://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4806.0, however they are very unlikely to change, considering that OA aims to keep the original Q3 gameplay as much as possible. See also * Manual/Items * Manual/Map elements Notes External links * Quake III Arena Guide - Weapons on PlanetQuake * Quake III Team Arena Guide - Weapons and Items on PlanetQuake Category:Manual